"......there is no single effort more radical in its potential for saving the world than a transformation of the way we raise our children."
-- Marianne Williamson

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Fun with Homeschooling in Nature

Lately we have been doing lots of nature science during our homeschool lessons. Above is Cyan finding an ant colony under our black oak tree in the back yard.

We have been keeping an Ecojournal in her Science Notebook of our findings in nature in our back yard this season. We even made a map of the yard with all the important things marked... like where all the berries are and of course, the chicken coop. lol... kids. They are a lot of fun with stuff like this.

This branch is our fall leaf experiment. We numbered 10 leaves with a sharpie and have been following the progression of the changing of colors and falling of leaves on a chart every two days for the last week. We had a big windstorm last week that took out half our leaves, (including #6, that is in the picture below)... and Cyan got to notice how many leaves fell off that branch because of the experiment and record it in her EcoJournal. It was pretty neat. :)

Here is the whole tree last week. It doesn't look like this anymore. I will have to get a new picture to add here. It is mostly red and brown now. It has been really amazing to so closely observe this change this year. We picked the perfect time. We have seen it up close and personal... the change from summer to winter.

As a family, we have been working on tree recognition. I think Alex is the most into it of all of us. My kids (both of them) are very interested in identifying all the trees around us right now. We got both books Fun with Nature and More Fun with Nature and they take those with us where we go. Alex has even taken to taking a leaf or a seed with him to school and looking in the computer lab to find out what it is after school and walking home. Like I said, they are REALLY into it. Another GREAT book that we found was "Crinkleroots Guide to Knowing the Trees"... wonderful book that my kids want to hear right now over and over again.

Watching Autumn happen through the eyes of my children has been a beautiful experience... and has been a heck of a lot of fun!

For a whole rundown on our homeschool days including more resources, look at my Live Journal link in the sidebar.

About Us Goddess Kids

This blog is about the kids. Alex (who is now 11 1/2) Cyan (now 6 1/2) and baby Logan (14 mos). About their creativity, their creations, and their wonderful ideas. Most of it is written by me now (their mom) but some of these will be written by them and will show their own little flare for writing to their family and friends. Enjoy!